The Mystery of Christ Living in His People
Rev. Aniekan "Mbomboyo" Okokon ·
The mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. — Colossians 1:26
The Old Testament is full of Christ, but it kept one thing back. Isaiah saw Him suffer; Daniel saw Him reign; Micah named His birthplace. Nobody saw that He would come to dwell inside ordinary people - Jew and Gentile alike, a fisherman in Galilee and a trader in Akwa Ibom - and make each of them a temple. Paul calls that the mystery, and says it was hidden until now.
Why it was hidden
Not because God was secretive, but because it could not be shown until it happened. Israel had the presence of God in a tent, then a building, behind a curtain. That was a picture, and pictures are drawn before the thing they depict arrives. The thing arrived at Pentecost, when the Spirit fell on a house full of people and the curtain, already torn, was replaced by a body of believers.
What the mystery includes
Ephesians 3 spells it out: the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, partakers of the promise in Christ. The mystery is not only that Christ lives in a person; it is that He lives in a people made of everyone, without a wall between them. Christ in you is Christ in us.
What it asks of a church
- Reverence for one another. The person beside you on Sunday is a dwelling place of God.
- An end to hierarchy of worth. Christ is not more present in the pastor than in the usher.
- Confidence in weakness. The treasure is in jars of clay on purpose, so the power is seen to be God's.
- Mission. If Christ lives in His people, then wherever His people go, He goes - into the market, the ward, the classroom.
Living inside the mystery
Paul says God wanted His saints to know the riches of this mystery. Not merely to believe it, but to know it - to live with the settled awareness that the Son of God has made His home in you and in the people you gather with. It changes how you pray, how you treat the church, and how you walk into a room. The ages waited for this. You are living in it.